The Incredible Petrified World

It's supposed to be cutting edge science: a diving bell that can descend the depths of the ocean. However, when a cable snaps, the crew fears that they may perish inside. After the crew leaves the bell to explore, they soon find a large network of caves and a survivor who has been there for over a decade. The survivor reveals the horrible truth: there is no way to get out of the caves. Or is there a way?

Reviews

This is a typical Jerry Warren patch up job. Warren would get a load of stock footage then try to make a story around it. In this case, the stock footage is of scuba divers and the story around it is what you get. Not much and not good.

Bruno De Soto who worked with Warren and just about every B movie director (even directed a few movies himself) said the Jerry Warren was the only director in Hollywood who ever set out to deliberately make a bad movie.

Among Warren's other movies, this is actually one of the better ones. The worst are the films almost entirely based on bought footage with a few linked scenes he shot which clearly don't fit with whatever footage he purchased. Those films are even too obscure to belong in PD. They suffer the worst critcism anyone can give to any sci fi/ horror movie. They are dull.

If you think this movie is boring, watch Face of the Screaming Werewolf, Creature of the Walking Dead and the last hour of Curse of the Stone Hand (the opening part of the movie has a good short film from South America made in the '30s).

The opening narration actually is pretty good (and factual). That's the only reason for two stars. The plot goes downhill faster than the diving bell. After that, the facts are few and far between. The fantasies abound: the lost bell is at 23N, 75W, "miles below the surface." However, the actual water depth at the Lat-Long, which is off of the Bahamas, is less than 100'. (Yes, I really checked it.) There is no escape hatch on the diving bell, but everyone goes in and out at will without a single drop of water getting in and without a single bubble of air escaping. The bell occupants withstand the pressure "miles below the surface" with scuba gear. Why did they bring full scuba gear, anyway? If they could swim from the bell, why not swim all the way up to the surface, nitrogen narcosis notwithstanding? I could go on...

And why do the guys keep taking off their shirts and putting them back on? They have no bath facilities. Oh, yes, then there's the lizard - a big one. What's it eat? Lots of insects in the dead caves?

Finally, the first bell didn't fail: the cable did. Why all of the tedious re-design, re-engineering and re-manufacturing just to keep a cable intact? And why wasn't the first cable system load-tested in the first place?

...this one is a fond childhood memory, I think it's the first sci-fi film I stayed up way too late to watch. Also the first one I realized was bogus.

Back then I didn't appreciate Phyllis Coates and Sheila Noonan however. Noonan went on to a few Corman films as Sheila Carrol in The Beast From Haunted Cave, Ski Troop Attack, a walk-on in Bucket of Blood, and...not much else really.

It says a lot that Jerry Warren had two fine leading ladies plus Robert Clark and John Carradine and still managed to bring it down to this level.

This film requires an incredible amount of pretending to trick yourself into believing your in the adventure rather than feeling like it. However, there is good film clips to look at. It's rather boring somewhat a drag but a wanta be scuba diver could appreciate it!

After reading the previous reviews I expected stiff acting, a boring and predictable script full of minor or major flaws. And that was exactly what I got. So I wasn´t disappointed, sometimes slightly amused, at least about the . . . let´s call him "missing link" with his so obviously false beard and hair. The great John Carradine looks not like a scientist but like somebody posing as one. This is at least the second film in which he has something to do with a diving bell. The first one is "Mr. Moto´s last warning", also available in IA. There he himself gets into the bell. Look for yourself. It´s a much more amusing film than this here.

Sadly to say, not a very good one. As soon as I realized that the opening scenes, supposed to be in the ocean, were indeed in the ocean, and in an aquarium and even from the Amazon river, I got me a strong beer (Irish) and gritting my teeth proceeded to suffer through this...
No nice words for it. Only reason I give it more than one star is because of John Carradine, who I like, even when he is bad.

Reviewer:jimelena -
-
January 22, 2008 Subject:
A Waste of John Carradine

In the first few minutes a shark tears up an octopus, pretty cool.
That's when the narrator tells us the ocean is a jungle. All the dialog stinks like that.